Snow glazes suburbs, city avoids mayhem

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8440] CHICAGO – Chicago avoided slick roads and potential flooding that was expected to accompany this winter’s first winter storm, though enough snow fell to end a 290-day streak of snowless days.

“The cumulative snow is over,” said Gino Izzi, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. “There’s still a few flurries around this morning, and it’s still pretty windy. Some of the far north and northwestern suburbs did get some accumulation but generally temperatures stayed above freezing so what snow did fall melted across the Chicago area.”

State police said they were “basically having an excellent evening” and didn’t report any major accidents.

No roads are closed in the city due to the weather, the police department’s News Affairs office said.

All CTA trains are running with normal service, according to the agency’s website. Metra hasn’t reported any delays, either.

Neither of the two major airports reported significant delays early Friday morning.

The streak of snowless days – the previous record set in 1994 at 280 days – came to an end about 6:30 p.m. Thurdsay when one-tenth of an inch fell at O’Hare International Airport, Izzi said. Another tenth fell before midnight.

“Yesterday was also now the latest first measurable snowfall in Chicago, (with records) going back almost 140 years,” Izzi said. “The old record was December 16, 1965.”

The heaviest snow accumulation remained west. Two-tenths of an inch was reported in Romeoville before midnight and three-tenths of an inch at Midway Airport during the same period. Much of that will have melted by Friday morning, the National Weather Service said.

The highest accumulation was in the Grayslake area, with 1.2 inches.

If the city makes it until Tuesday without an inch of snow falling at O’Hare – a real possibility – it will be the second longest streak, Izzi said, at 303 days. The record is 313.

The city is also in the midst of the second longest streak of days without a high temperature below freezing – the last day was Feb. 25, the longest stretch since 1878.

“Eight more days and it’s the new record,” Izzi said. “We could cool down at the end of next week so we may not break it but we’re going to come close.”